It is not uncommon for manufacturers of electronic devices to utilize one or more integrated circuits, sometimes referred to as ICs or chips, or integrated circuit sets, sometimes referred to as chip sets, to support the majority of functions enabled by the device. The oftentimes complicated functions are developed and implemented into the integrated circuits by the IC manufacturers. The design of the electronic device can be greatly simplified through the use of chips or chip sets.
As an example, it is not uncommon for manufacturers of mobile telephones, such as cellular telephones, to base the telephone design on one or more integrated circuits that perform the majority of the telephone functions. A radio transceiver IC can be selected to support a desired air interface standard. Similarly, a baseband processing IC can be selected that operates in conjunction with the radio transceiver IC, and that performs the baseband processing in accordance with a communication standard.
A communication standard may specify performance parameters for the electronic device. The ICs supporting the communication standard may provide the architecture for satisfying the performance parameters. However, the performance of the electronic device typically varies based on the manner in which the ICs are integrated into the final design of the electronic device. Numerous variables may contribute to the performance of the electronic device. The ICs typically include the ability of a designer of the electronic device to modify one or more characteristics within the IC in order to coordinate the performance of the ICs with the electronic device design such that performance parameters of a given standard can be satisfied.
As an example, mobile phone standards bodies, such as the Global Certification Forum (GCF) or the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) specify a suite of audio test cases that a mobile telephone should satisfy. Several of the audio test cases relate to a frequency response of a mobile phone's acoustic system.
The acoustic system of a mobile telephone may include the acoustic signal processing modules within an IC, such as a baseband signal processor, as well as filters, amplifiers, and transducers that may be external to ICs. The acoustic behavior of a mobile telephone can be dependent upon many variables that may include, for example, the physical design of the telephone and characteristics of any device within the acoustic system.
Typically, some form of compensation or modification of the audio system is performed in order to design and produce a mobile telephone that is compliant with the relevant communication standards. As an example, a filter can be added to the audio signal path to alter the frequency response exhibited by the entire audio system. The filter can selectively provide emphasis or de-emphasis of one or more audio frequency bands in order to contribute to an audio system that is compliant with the audio test cases of one or more standards.
Typically, filter design and design of a filter having a particular emphasis and de-emphasis response is not a trivial matter. The amount of engineering effort devoted to designing a filter for a particular mobile telephone design may not be trivial and may require several iterations before a suitable filter design is achieved. The complexity and number of iterations contribute to design delays and design costs associated with the design of a mobile telephone.
It is desirable to ease the design process, decrease the number of design iterations, speed the design process, and reduce the design cost associated with the design of a mobile telephone. However, such desires often appear to operate exclusive of one another, and it may not appear possible to satisfy cost reduction while simultaneously speeding the design process.